"We will not give you the name of another publisher," the letter reads. "We hate no rival publisher sufficiently to ask you to inflict (this) on him."

They elaborated by saying they "have never seen worse" than the sample poem Meyer apparently provided.

Talk about not holding back.

In an incredible feat of perseverance, Meyer ended up not only self-publishing his own book, "Pearls of the Blue Mountains of Australia," but somehow managed to put out a follow-up edition called "Jewels of Mountains and Snowlines of New Zealand."

Steve Oxenham of Scoop News in New Zealand wrote in 2001 that Meyer was "the finest bad poet (New Zealand) has produced, which says rather a lot."